


Secrets That You Keep

by Tokyo_the_Glaive



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Canon Compliant, Hell's Kitchen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-05-01 12:24:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5205785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tokyo_the_Glaive/pseuds/Tokyo_the_Glaive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Foggy always said that his mother wanted him to be a butcher.<br/>(Or, that's what he told Matt.  The truth is a little more complicated, and definitely unbelievable.)</p><p>He planned on keeping it a secret forever, buried along with his affections for Matt, but Hell's Kitchen has other plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secrets That You Keep

Foggy wakes to the groans of steel beams and the heavy, persistent hum of concrete, asphalt, and metamorphic rock.  He can feel the tides in his bones and the Hudson in his blood.  Silica, alumina, lime, iron oxide, magnesia—all of these sing to Foggy.  Oxygen and nitrogen vibrate steadily in the background, the baseline to a grand symphony.  At the forefront, the soprano of the opera, is water.  It’s in the air, under ground, in the river and estuary, and on the breath and in the bodies of the thousands of people New York City houses day in and day out.

The voices come together to deliver a performance that, in spite of the high drama, has an air of verisimilitude.Through it, Foggy sees all.

Foggy’s downstairs neighbor has already left for work.He’s just gotten a new job, but his manager doesn’t like him.The plastic walls and the worn purple fibers of the carpet in his cubicle say that he puts in hour after hour of good, honest work, but he’s doomed because the numbers aren’t solid.The manager knows this—the walls of his office speak, too; iron and nitrogen and carbon in the form of ferricyanide paint it Prussian blue and speak to Foggy in low, low voices—and complains to _his_ manager, “because, _what if he finds out?_ ”

Foggy doesn’t know what his downstairs neighbor stands to find out.He suspects that it’s some form of wrongdoing—the streets of Hell’s Kitchen scream _wrong_ , _this is wrong,_ so often that Foggy’s learned to suspect the worst—but it’s none of his business.If his neighbor needs an attorney, Foggy will help him as best as he can within the confines of the law.

Foggy tells himself this every morning.He cannot use his abilities to help other people.

After all, who would believe him?

* * *

Foggy goes to the office just as he does every morning.  The sidewalk sees him coming and clears the way—there’s noticeably less litter, and pedestrians are more inclined to get out of Foggy’s path.  It’s the little things like that that make Foggy love the city.  Or, to put it another way, it’s hard not to love something that loves you so entirely as New York City, particularly Hell’s Kitchen, loves Foggy Nelson.

It’s always been this way.Since Foggy was little—since before Foggy can remember, but his mother and grandmother could—the city has always looked out for Foggy.When a car passing a school bus tried to waffle him, the road threw Foggy back onto the curb and killed the engine on the car.The driver was hurt—not killed, the city has never killed for Foggy and Foggy sincerely hopes it remains that way—and Foggy skinned his knees.No one saw the road throw Foggy because the city knew how to cover its tracks, but Foggy’s mother remembered, so that was that.Nothing worse came to pass.

Foggy remembers being in middle school: he was bullied incessantly for being fat.By that time, he understood the way the city worked and had asked that it not intervene.He didn’t want the bullies to get hurt, not really; he just wanted to be left alone.

The city understood, but it didn’t leave him alone.Instead, it grew Foggy flowers between the cracks in paving stones, big lilac bushes and stunning roses.It sent kittens and puppies for him to play with, strays that the Nelson family inevitably took in.There was an element of obligation to that act, of course: you never turned away from the city’s gifts, no matter how odd.So though the pets kept coming and Foggy’s mother had to give a half-baked explanation to suspicious neighbors as to why there were lilacs blooming in January, none of the Nelsons, Foggy included, ever uttered a single complaint.

Taken as a package, though, there was hardly anything to complain about.Throughout college, when Foggy was a little too drunk for his own good, the city would make sure he got home safely.Even in an inebriated state, Foggy could feel the roads twisting before him, pushing and pulling ever so slightly until he was safe in his room, where nothing could hurt him.When he was running late for class, paths became shorter and smoother.In winter, ice disappeared before him and reappeared behind him.When he was about to run into someone he’d rather not see, the sidewalk tugged gently at his shoes in warning.

For all that he took, though, Foggy gave back.He volunteered when he found the time.He took part in city initiatives to plant more trees, to feed the homeless, to clean up the streets—anything the city might like, Foggy tried his hand at.He’d come home after a long day of work—first academic, then social—exhausted but thrilled.After all, he could feel the city preening under his attention, glad to have someone like Foggy.To him, it was only fair; the city offered him everything, or it would if he asked.A few hours of community service every few days was nothing.

* * *

“You know, my mom wanted me to be a butcher.”

“Not the butcher story.”

Foggy grins at Matt.He tells the story often because it always elicits the same response.Matt never fails to give him that exasperated sigh, but it’s coupled with a smile and a crinkle around his eyes that tells Foggy that everything’s going to be all right.Lately, he’s needed to see it more than usual.

“Yep,” Foggy says.“But I told her I wanted to be a lawyer.Can’t remember what I said after that.”

“You never do.”

Foggy laughs, in part because it’s what Matt always says, and in part because it’s expressly untrue.

He’s told the story often enough that it falls off his tongue at the slightest provocation.It flows so much easier than the truth.Foggy doesn’t think it’s the city that makes the words stick in the back of his throat like gum on a sidewalk, but sometimes it feels so palpably impossible to talk about that Foggy wonders.

* * *

“Franklin.”

Foggy walked to his mother’s outstretched arms and looked up at her.He had a bruise coloring his right eye.

“Have you been fighting?”

“No,” Foggy answered honestly.“They hit me.”

“Who hit you, darling?”

Foggy wiped his snotty nose on his sleeve and ignored his mother’s disapproving expression as it flitted across her face, replaced by concern.

“Some boys in my class,” Foggy said finally.“They think I’m a freak.”

“ _Franklin_.”

Foggy’s mother only used that tone when she was very, very serious, so he made a point to look directly at her.Sometimes, when she spoke, he couldn’t understand what she was saying unless he could see her.It wasn’t until he was much older that he understood just how deep magic ran in her, and how her strong emotions tended to bend the world around her without really trying.

“Did you ask for help?”

That’s how she referenced the city.As an adult, Foggy could never remember if she ever referred to it by name.She certainly never talked about Hell’s Kitchen or New York City.Those names, she was quick to say, were false.The city—Foggy didn’t know of another way to think of it, and the city itself had never offered an alternative—had been around for far longer than either of those names had existed.Foggy had asked once how that was possible, only to earn one of the few spankings he’d ever received.The city, for all that Foggy referred to it as such, pre-dated any man-made structures or ideas.The city had been there since before humans had settled, and it would remain long after.

“No,” Foggy admitted.He’d felt the city roaring in anger against the other kids, yet he’d asked it with everything he had to please, _please_ don’t do anything.It had pleaded with him, _please please please_ , it didn’t want to see Foggy in pain, but Foggy had pleaded right back even as the boys taunted him and hit him over and over in the exact same places.

Foggy’s mother sighed and sat back.She pulled Foggy up into her chair so that he sat on her lap, curled against her chest.He shut his eyes and breathed in.

“I just want you to be happy,” she’d said.Foggy had always wondered if she had been talking to him or to the city—perhaps both.Then, she said it again: “I just want you to be happy.”

* * *

So, Foggy doesn’t tell Matt the story.  Really, there isn’t too much of a story to tell.  He told his mother that he was going to law school after he was accepted to Columbia.  She’d been momentarily surprised but not shocked.  After a few quiet moments, she’d gone on rolling out the crust for a pie and had asked Foggy if he could roll up his sleeves, please, because she needed a little help with the filling.

Foggy couldn’t explain to Matt, even setting aside the issue of his ability to hear and feel and see the city at all times from all angles, the lump that rose in his throat when he thought of that moment at home with his mother, sitting in her chair and wondering: was it Foggy she wanted to keep happy, or the city itself?

It wasn’t a happy kind of wondering.Foggy’s mother had been warm to him, had loved him—but she hadn’t loved _people_.Part of the reason she was able to slip by undetected—other than the intervention of the city—was that she didn’t like people, and people in turn didn’t like her.She never told Foggy this, but Foggy _knew_.

He could hear what she heard, most of the time.Growing up, the extrasensory detail the city offered came in waves and then all at once.It was so strong, Foggy could sometimes hardly breathe from the weight of it.There were arguments and gunshots and drugs and smoke, so much smoke, pollution as far as the eye could see and the tongue could taste and the ear could hear.

Days when it was particularly bad, when the city whispered its pains, humanity felt like a plague.Those were the days Foggy’s mother locked the doors and windows, set a candle burning, and went back to sleep.Foggy could find her hunched over in bed with her mother, Foggy’s grandmother, standing over her, muttering that she needed to get up, but Foggy’s mother wouldn’t.She couldn’t, she’d say.Foggy’s grandmother would say something about Foggy, and all at once they would both realize that he was standing there in the doorway.

Those days, Foggy’s grandmother couldn’t get Foggy’s mother out of bed, and when she gave up trying, she took Foggy out for a walk.She would lock the front door behind them — “So as not to anger your mother,” Foggy’s grandmother would say — and they’d go to a park and sit on a bench and listen to the world.Foggy’s grandmother would make him listen for joy, for hope, for love.They found beautiful things on those days, even through the din of terror that sometimes kept Foggy up at nights.

“Don’t give up on people, Franklin,” Foggy’s grandmother used to say.“They’re loud and they do bad things sometimes, but you can’t give up on them.I tried to teach your mother to hope for the best but expect the worst.I’ve always suspected she only listened halfway.You have to have hope, Franklin.Our city needs hope.A city without hope sickens and dies.”

“Will the city ever give up on people, do you think?” Foggy asked once.He’d spoken slowly, his tongue loathe to form the words.The city’s conspicuous silence on the matter, the lack of whispered encouragement, answered the question.Foggy’s grandmother had taken him home then and made him hot chocolate.They both pretended as if Foggy had never asked.

So Foggy became a lawyer—someone who could help people, someone who could make it so that the city never crumbled under the weight of its own sickness, willingly borne.The butcher part he added for effect—because, honestly, wasn’t Hell’s Kitchen full of them?

* * *

(But Foggy wondered, he always wondered—if the city would give up on people, would it also give up on him?)

* * *

Foggy should have known that something was wrong with Matt a very long time ago.

By the time he got to Columbia, Foggy had a very good handle on his relationship with the city.He asked it not to tell him anything compromising about people he knew—classmates, friends, professors.He’d made a special note about Matt.Seeing as they’d be living together, Foggy didn’t want to know any more than Matt was willing to tell him.It would be horribly invasive, and what if he tripped up and said something that revealed his secret?He couldn’t imagine how horrible Matt would feel if he knew that, if he wanted to, Foggy could know anything and everything about him.

As it was, the city only listened to an extent.It reminded him about Matt’s childhood accident on the day that they met, and it told him not to treat his new roommate like glass.It told him that Matt was a fighter, that he had strength—but there it stopped, and for that, Foggy was tremendously grateful.

Even so, Foggy should have noticed.It was the way that their room would be tidied while Foggy was away at class, or the way Matt sometimes seemed eerily attuned to things.For example, he’d talk about someone—the Greek girl, say—and lo and behold, she’d appear not two minutes later.He’d be talking about getting Mediterranean food, and he and Foggy would happen across a new place, just opened.It was things like that that should have gotten Foggy’s attention.

But Matt was blind.Foggy didn’t look too far past that.

* * *

To be fair, Matt’s blindness wasn’t the only reason Foggy managed to miss the secret.

Matt had a horrible sense of humor and a bad habit of studying too hard; he was a complete downer at parties when he could be assed to go to them and tended to nag Foggy about leaving his things everywhere.

Foggy was pretty sure he loved him, and that was bad bad _bad_.

Roommate relationships were always a no-go and could only end in tragedy.He’d been warned many times about falling in love with friends, and he felt like a fool for his crush on Matt Murdock.Nothing the guy did could stop it, either.Foggy would say something stupid and Matt would smile that megawatt smile and Foggy’s heart would melt just a little bit more.He’d guide Matt around campus, and they’d kill in debate practices and study together for exams.Every single time, every single day, Foggy felt himself falling just a little bit more.

He told himself that eventually he and Matt would go their separate ways and Foggy would be free to jack off to an idealized version of Matt for the rest of his life, but he found that, when it came down to applying for internships, that he didn’t want to.Foggy thought of Tantalus—up to the neck in water but eternally thirsty, standing under a fruit tree but unable to eat.That would be his life for the foreseeable future if he followed Matt.

If Foggy hadn’t told the city to stay out of his business with Matt—which he had to do several times after the city realized the extent of Foggy’s affections—it might have offered an opinion.As it was, the decision was all on Foggy when he and Matt bumped fists over their joint acceptance at Landman and Zack.

* * *

Landman and Zack was hell on wheels.  Foggy had never worked so hard in his life, and he’d sincerely hoped he would never have to say so again.  Competition between interns was _intense_ , to say the least.

The city’s murmurings didn’t help.

Foggy realized early on that the city had _feelings_.It wanted things, the same way a person might.It generally craved specifics: more green trees and less carbon dioxide, more playing children and fewer bar fights.It craved justice, restoration of balance, harmony—not peace; it didn’t like quiet.But it wanted _harmony_.

And, more each passing day, it wanted Foggy away from Landman and Zack.

It didn’t give specifics, but it whispered to him in the night.It accused him, for the first time, of shrinking from—whatever his duties with regards to the city entailed.To be frank, Foggy had never been sure what those were.His grandmother had passed away before she could explain, and his mother never wanted to talk about it.Foggy had always tried to give back with community service—wasn’t that enough?

Not any more, apparently.The city pushed and pushed until—

“Why do you have that look on your face?”

“What look?” Matt had asked, innocent as the Devil.If Matt gave Foggy that look and told him to kill a man, Foggy would actually consider it.It was the look that made Foggy’s heart flutter as, again and again, he was reminded of his constant crush on his best friend.

“You know what look.”

Matt had frowned.“I’ve been reading Thurgood Marshall.”

Foggy had felt the city rallying behind Matt as he began pulling out quotes.Foggy imagined what it would have looked like had it been more than a feeling: green tendrils wrapping around Matt, encasing him as it often did Foggy, saying _he’s right, follow him, follow him, follow him…_

Honestly, Foggy was in too deep with Matt do do anything else.

* * *

Foggy hasn’t stopped following Matt since.  The city’s been happy—true.  But the city never picks favorites without a reason.  It picked Foggy because—well, Foggy wasn’t actually sure about that.  But it definitely liked Matt.  If only Foggy had been a little more invasive, a little less concerned with personal boundaries, he might have discovered it sooner.  He consoles himself with the thought that the city probably wouldn’t have approved if he had.

Somehow, that doesn’t make the discovery any easier.

* * *

Before that, though, Foggy’s life gets stranger.  Karen appears.  Foggy’s more than a little enamored with Karen.  She’s beautiful—admittedly, her physical beauty is what Foggy first notices about her, something he’s later ashamed to think of.  But she’s brave and brilliant and hardworking, and Foggy can’t help but love her.  It’s not the same way he loves Matt, but it’s a certain kind of love, and Foggy’s never been good at ignoring his feelings.

Then come the explosions, and the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.In sharp contrast to Karen, Foggy can’t help but hate the man they call the Devil.Not because Foggy’s hurt in the explosions, because he isn’t; not fifteen seconds before explosions rock Elena Cardenas’ building, the city pleads with him, all at once, to _get down,_ _please get down._ After, Karen looks at him strangely and he’s stuck between trying to explain that, no, he’s not responsible, he didn’t know it was going to happen, and needing to help the others in the building who might be less lucky.Foggy ends up hailing cabs for five plus Elena to get them to hospitals.He calls Matt, and the phone rings and rings and rings and rings.Foggy sits in the waiting room at the hospital with his head in his hands and all but cries in terror.

It’s for them that Foggy hates the Devil.Elena is good, and Foggy doesn’t know the people he called cabs for, but he thinks that they’re probably good, too.(He conspicuously refuses to ask the city for confirmation.He doesn’t need any more horror, not right now.)

The Devil is a man willing to burn the world to further his own agenda, whatever that is.Foggy can’t stand the thought.

Even worse, though, is the thought that the Devil might have taken Matt with him when he decided to drag the city to hell.

* * *

The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen is enough to make Foggy reverse his earlier judgment about what the city could and could not tell him about his friends.  He asks the city to keep a special eye on Karen and Matt.  It pays off soon enough; one evening, just as Foggy reaches the bottom of his takeout container, poking the remaining noodles and chicken with his chopsticks, the city cries out, _Karen, Karen, Karen, DANGER_.

Foggy doesn’t think twice.He has his bat and his baseball and he follows Karen, first to and from the docks, then to Elena’s house.On her way out, she’s attacked by a couple of goons Foggy’s seen lurking about.They haven’t seen him because the city is more than its streets—it’s the shadows and awnings and the very sky above.Foggy hides in the dark until they make their move, then he makes his.

The city gives him directions as he approaches.Foggy shivers to hear the thing he loves tell him how to hurt someone.The city knows all too much about that.He does his best to knock one out, and Karen maces the other into eye-melting oblivion.The city caws victory in Foggy’s head, and Foggy feels just a little sick.

 _Justice_ , the city proclaims, and Foggy has to swallow around his dawning horror to speak to Karen.

* * *

Through Karen, Foggy meets Ben Urich, a man the city seems to adore.  He allows himself to hope, for one sliver of an instant, that the world is going to get better.  The city can’t love a man like this and think violence is justice.  The two points of view are utterly incongruous.  (The city’s pointed silence on the matter is telling, and Foggy chooses to ignore it.  He’s doing that rather a lot these days.)

Ben’s a good guy.Old school, the kind of reporter that gets romanticized in movies and TV shows, the kind that does good and declines any credit because all he did was the right thing, nothing fancy.Ben laughs at Foggy’s description when he blurts it out one day by accident and says that he certainly hopes Foggy’s right.

“Some credit would be nice, though,” he says., “from time to time.”They drink to that because Foggy absolutely understands.

* * *

It goes to hell with Elena.  The city tells Foggy quietly, and altogether too late, what has happened to her.  She’s alone—no family to identify the body, no one to bury her, _no one_ —and what gets Foggy is that the city had to have known that it was coming.  It saw it happening, and it did nothing.

Foggy’s never punched a hole through a wall before, but he does his damnedest after leaving the morgue and dropping Karen at her apartment.Matt’s gone God knows where, and Foggy’s so furious that he can’t help himself from taking his knuckles to a brick wall.The city visibly flinches, and Foggy sees the ripples of shock as it trembles, understanding just what it’s done.

He apologizes, smoothing over the wall, and goes home.What else is there to do?

Foggy thinks it can’t get worse.

* * *

Of course, it can get worse, and it does: Foggy finds out.  The city doesn’t pick favorites without a reason, and Foggy’s learning every day that the city doesn’t always pick its favorites by the same metrics.

The city screams at Foggy out of nowhere: _MATT MATT MATT MATT MATT_.It’s given Foggy no special information since Elena died, so to hear this, out of nowhere, jolts Foggy as he walks home from the morgue.It gives no indication where Matt is, just keeps up a constant litany until Foggy’s standing at his best friend’s door, banging as hard as he can and probably waking half of the building in the process.He finally gives up and breaks in, and—

The thing that Foggy has all but cursed every day since its appearance, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, is none other than Matt Murdock.

Foggy does what he’s never done before: he asks for help.The city rushes at him all at once, eager to please—eager to help one of its favorites, save the other, Foggy supposes.The city tells Foggy about the burner phone, about how it has a lovely nurse at the other end who can save his friend.Foggy dials without hesitation, and the city sees to it that she gets to Matt’s apartment faster than blinking.When she begins working, the city whispers in Foggy’s ear, rattling a list of injuries that seems endless.Foggy repeats them verbatim, one right after the other.His tongue feels numb, and his mouth is dry.

Claire looks at him as he translates the city’s observations.

“Are you a doctor?” she asks.

“No,” Foggy says.“I’m his friend.”

“Didn’t think he had any of those,” Claire says.

Foggy moves his lips as if to speak but cannot.He feels Claire’s confusion even as she redirects her attention to the man—Matt, Matt is the Devil, _Christ_ —bleeding out on the floor.He feels, too, the city’s confusion.It can’t understand why Foggy feels numb inside, why he thinks that he has to sit down for fear of his legs giving way.

 _He’s a killer_ , Foggy thinks, the words coming slowly to mind. _Matt’s a murderer._

 _Justice_ , the city shoots back, and Foggy visibly flinches. _Justice_.

“Blood bother you?” Claire asks, and Foggy jumps again.“You should sit down before you fall over.I don’t want to have to stitch you up, too.”

“Yes,” Foggy lies, taking the easy opening.“That’s a good idea.”He sits and stares at the ceiling.

 _Justice_ , the city repeats, over and over. _Justice_. _Justice.Justice_.

As if what Matt was doing, putting on a costume and beating people up, could ever be termed justice.How could he, anyway?Matt’s blind, he couldn’t—Foggy forces himself to take deep breaths and shuts his eyes.He can’t do anything now, not until Matt’s awake.

The city burns quiet at the back of Foggy’s mind.It knows, Foggy realizes.It’s always known.That’s why it looks out for Matt, because he does this sort of stupid shit.He probably thinks he’s saving the city.Foggy knows he’s hit the nail on the head when the city puffs up at the thought of Matt coming to its defense.Foggy wants to be ill, so he excuses himself to Matt’s bathroom to do just that.

* * *

Foggy and Matt talk.  The city remains quiet throughout their conversation, allowing them to speak for themselves.  Foggy can feel his heart breaking into a million little pieces, the edges jagged and uneven like the cuts blanketing Matt’s body.

Foggy walks away before it can hurt any more.The city doesn’t like that.

For the first time, Foggy understands what it means to be on the city’s bad side.He stumbles and nearly falls more often than he’d care to admit.People glare at him walking past as if he’s done something wrong.In his heart of hearts, he knows he has—he’s left Matt alone, and after he got beat silly by ninjas, if Matt’s to be believed—but the people he’s passing have no way of knowing and Foggy refuses to turn back, so he clutches his coat tight around him and keeps walking.

He tries to go to Marci, but the city won’t allow it.He gets most of the way to Karen’s before the city says no to that as well.He’s left with nowhere to go but home, where he can wallow in self-pity for a friendship — _a love_ —built on one enormous lie.

* * *

Matt is blind, the city tells him.  Foggy squeezes his eyes shut, but that does nothing to tune out the world around him.  It seems so much louder now, full of pain and agony.  It’s the city’s way of trying to tell him that it needs people like Ben Urich and people like Matt Murdock both.  Can’t Foggy see that?

No, Foggy can’t see it.He doesn’t want to see it.Seeing it means admitting that, in some sense, the city’s already given up on people.No longer able to see a way for people to fix themselves, the city’s armed a protector and sent him out to die.

Foggy presses his face into his own pillow and wills himself to sleep.

* * *

Wilson Fisk.

Foggy finds out everything he can about him, not that there’s much.The city knows a lot but won’t say.It’s in this way that Foggy realizes that the city likes Fisk, too.Foggy asks why and receives a jumbled lump of images in response.

There’s Fisk with his mother, Fisk drawing up plans for buildings, Fisk setting out his plans for his “New Tomorrow”.The city presents them with admiration, a little halo of light around his face.

Foggy doesn’t want to ask, but he does: since Matt’s going up against Fisk, which one is the city going to stand behind?They can’t both come out on top.The city has made Matt, and, in some sense, it’s made Fisk, too; is it just going to thrown one or both of them away?

The city does not answer, but Foggy feels it tremble beneath him.What he initially mistakes for rage, Foggy learns to see as fear.The city dreads the answer to Foggy’s question almost as much as Foggy does.

* * *

It takes three alarm-set Sundays for Foggy to finally roll out of bed on time to make Sunday Services at Matt’s church.  Foggy sits in the back through the service and waits until everyone else has left to walk up the pews to where Father Lanthom is collecting his things.

“Excuse me,” Foggy says, and the priest looks at him.

“Hello,” Father Lanthom says, “I haven’t seen you here before.Checking out our services?”

“No,” Foggy says.He winces at himself and backpedals, “That is, a friend of mine usually comes here.Matthew Murdock?”

Something changes in Father Lanthom’s eyes.“Ah,” he says.“Yes, I know Matthew.”

Foggy ducks his head.He hasn’t really thought this through, but he’s here, so, bull in a china shop approach or not, he’s doing this.

“I’m worried about him,” Foggy says.“I don’t know if he’s told you anything—”

“Seal of confession,” Father Lanthom says gently.“What is your name?”

“Foggy Nelson,” Foggy says.“Well, _Franklin_ Nelson.”

“Mr. Nelson,” Father Lanthom says, nodding slightly.“I take it you know me.”

“Father Lanthom,” Foggy says.

The priest sighs.“I haven’t seen Matthew in some time now,” he admits.“I was hoping he’d come back soon, but perhaps you and I could have a chat.We just got a new coffee machine—makes a great latte.”

* * *

Foggy talks to Father Lanthom.

“I found out something,” Foggy says, clutching his latte in his hands, “something bad.About Matt.He kept a secret from me.”

“How did you find out?” Father Lanthom asks.

Foggy huffs a laugh.“Caught him off guard in his apartment,” he admits.“He didn’t mean for me to know.I think he was worried that I’d get roped into it—this, _thing_ , he’s in.Thing is, no jury would believe me if he got caught by the authorities and I said I had no idea.We were—friends.”

“Were?” Father Lanthom asks sharply.

Foggy closes his eyes.“I don’t know now,” he says.“Our assistant—Karen—she’s been trying to get us to talk again, but every time I see him, my throat closes up, you know?I choke, and he’s just standing there, and we can’t bring ourselves to speak.So I just leave.”

“But you care for Matthew.”

Foggy swallows a lump in his throat.“Yeah,” he says.

“Do you love him?”

Foggy nearly chokes now.“I don’t— That’s not—”

Father Lanthom holds up a hand.“You don’t need to tell me,” he said, “you need to tell yourself.”

“You’ve got to be the strangest priest I’ve ever met,” Foggy blurts.

Father Lanthom smiles.“I’ve a feeling you haven’t met very many priests, Mr. Nelson.”Foggy smiles tightly.“Have you considered that you and Matthew may have the same dilemma?”

“I’m pretty sure his issues are worse than mine,” Foggy mutters.

“Then it falls on you to make the first move,” Father Lanthom says.

“Wait, what?”

“If the greater burden rests upon Matthew,” the priest says patiently, “and if you both want the same thing, perhaps it is not best to meet in the middle.Perhaps you must meet him closer to his side.”

“I don’t understand.”

Father Lanthom shifts so that he’s angled more toward Foggy.“If I understand you correctly,” he says carefully, “Matthew’s secret—the one that’s rent your relationship—weighs upon him.Not only that, but he wishes for things to be as they were.”

“They can’t be,” Foggy says.“I can’t…” He laughs at himself.He can’t bring himself to finish the sentence.

“No, they cannot,” Father Lanthom says.“But you must show him that you can move forward, together.In light of this secret, you must redefine your relationship and its boundaries.”

“I don’t think Matt knows any boundaries anymore.”

“So you do not wish to reforge your friendship.”

Father Lanthom’s mouth is a grim line, and Foggy splutters to repair the misunderstanding.“No, I do,” he says quickly, “I just— I don’t know if it’s possible.I want to.I really do.I—care for him.”

Father Lanthom bows his head.“I do not often deal in platitudes, Mr. Nelson,” he says, “but where there’s a will, there’s a way.Something tells me you two will pull through.But you must _try_.”

* * *

It takes time.  Foggy considers going back to Father Lanthom for more advice, but he’s afraid of running into Matt at church.

Really, it takes too long.Foggy doesn’t think Matt’s ever going to make an attempt to so much as speak with him again, and he can’t stand it.Foggy has thrown their sign—the thing that used to be proof that they’d made it and now only reminds Foggy of better times— he’s thrown it away and fished it out of the trash more times than he can count within the span of a few minutes, and he doesn’t know what to do.

When Matt comes around again—and that’s the other thing, Matt’s been avoiding him, probably listening to his pulse from across the city so that he knows where not to go—something the city happily confirms—he stands abruptly, and Matt stops in his tracks.

“Karen, can you take a lunch break?” Foggy asks quickly.

Karen stands at her own desk and looks between the two of them.It’s early in the morning, far too early, but she’s been waiting for this moment for weeks. She leaves the office without a word.

Matt opens his mouth, but it’s Foggy who says, “I’m sorry.”

“Foggy—”

“No,” Foggy says, swallowing around his own fear.“You don’t get to talk right now, not yet.I just— I don’t have a right to—”Foggy fists his hair, and Matt makes an aborted motion to approach him.He thinks better of it and stands across the office, gripping his cane with white knuckles.

“How much do you know?” Foggy asks.

“Foggy?”

“About me,” Foggy says.He wishes his tongue didn’t feel like lead.It’s not the city—it’s sitting on the sidelines, waiting for reconciliation—it’s his own fear, his own dread.

Matt colors slightly.“Foggy, if this is about—” he stops himself.“Don’t worry,” Matt says instead.

“Don’t worry,” Foggy echoes.“No, Matt, I have to worry.How much do you know?”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to talk,” Matt says quietly.Something in Foggy breaks.It’s his _friend_ standing across from him, looking like a forlorn puppy left in the rain.

“Your office,” Foggy says, approaching Matt.“Come on.I need to talk to you.”Foggy grabs for Matt’s arm out of habit and immediately recoils.“Sorry,” he says.

“No,” Matt says, then clamps his mouth shut.“I like it when you guide me,” he says finally.

Gingerly, Foggy replaces his hand at Matt’s elbow.Matt’s resultant megawatt smile could have powered a billion billboards for centuries.

Still, they stand awkwardly in front of Matt’s desk.

“Sit down, please,” Foggy says, in part because it’s so awkward, but mostly because he’s a little worried that Matt’s going to hit the floor before the end of the conversation.Foggy’s not sure how well this is going to go over, and Matt’s already visibly injured, and not just emotionally—there are a plethora of new cuts and bruises across Matt’s visible skin.Foggy doesn’t want to think about the rest, the things he can’t see.

“You’re nervous,” Matt says, sitting.

Foggy swallows.“Yes,” he says.“I’m nervous.”He swallows again and looks away, as if Matt would know the difference.Actually, he probably does, but—

“Foggy,” Matt says, and his voice is so full of kindness, so full of patience, that Foggy starts to tear up.Matt can tell, of course; Foggy can see Matt’s face fall and realizes belatedly that Matt thinks he’s responsible.

“I’m gonna get a chair,” Foggy mumbles.He steals Karen’s from behind her desk and drags it into Matt’s office, closing the door behind him.He sits down with an audible thud and notes that the horrified look on Matt’s face hasn’t gone away.

“I’m scared,” Foggy said.“I’m afraid of this conversation, about what you’re going to say.I’m afraid you’re going to do to me what I did to you.”

“Foggy?”The terror has crept into Matt’s voice.

Foggy licks his lips and says, “When I was a kid, I was almost hit by a car.”

* * *

Karen comes back long before they’ve finished.  Matt warns Foggy that she’s coming—it’s the first time he’s spoken since Foggy began—and heads her off at the door.  He tells her to take the day.

Matt’s face must look odd because Foggy can hear Karen ask, “Is everything all right?”

“I—yes, Karen, please…”

“Of course.”Karen collects her things and pauses when she notices the absence of her chair.Foggy can’t bring himself to look at her.He’ll have to tell her, too; he should do it now, but he can’t bring himself to.It’s hard enough facing down Matt’s sightless stare; he doesn’t think he can handle her concern, be it polite or genuine.

Matt takes his seat opposite Foggy and gestures for him to continue.

* * *

When Foggy gets to the point in his life where Matt comes into the picture, Matt’s face goes completely blank.  It’s hard to continue, but Foggy does, his tongue getting stuck periodically.  Foggy can feel the city at his back and his sides, pressing him on, urging him to get it out.  Against all odds, he does.

* * *

It’s over, finally.  Foggy falls silent.  His hands are twitchy from all of the fiddling he’s been doing, and he’s sweating, too—God, he must paint Murdock one hell of a picture.

Matt opens his mouth and Foggy full-on flinches.Matt’s teeth click as he snaps his mouth shut.Foggy squeezes his eyes shut and wishes this weren’t so hard.

“Two blocks from here,” Matt says quietly, and Foggy’s eyes flutter open, “the café next to the laundromat.

“What?”

“What does the city tell you?” Matt asks.

The city’s speaking before Matt’s question is even finished.

“The baristas are arguing,” Foggy says.He can almost see the café, courtesy of the city—there are two women behind the counter.Even though it’s busy, they’re trading barbs quietly.“One of them didn’t order enough coffee, and they’re out of caramel syrup.The guy who’s supposed to be working in the kitchens has taken a forty-five minute break and has smoked two cigarettes.Scones in the oven are burning.The sandwiches in the case have been sitting for an hour and the meat’s starting to smell because the refrigerator isn’t set right and the glass doesn’t seal tight enough.”

Matt’s mouth is a thin line, and it’s only when Foggy gets to the end that he realizes—this is a test.

“You didn’t believe me, did you?” Foggy croaks.

Matt bites his lips.“I knew you believed what you were saying,” he says.

“But you thought I was crazy?” Foggy asks.He’s having a hard time holding back the disbelief in his own voice.“After what you told me?”

“Foggy—”

“Just—I’m sorry, Matt, this was a mistake,” Foggy says, standing abruptly.“But now we’re even.”

“Foggy.”There’s more force to Matt’s voice now, an insistence.

“What?” Foggy demands.He’s hurt and he wants to leave, and can’t Matt just _do_ something other than sit there with that concerned face?

Matt takes a deep breath and says, “Foggy, you asked me what I knew.”Foggy’s breath catches.“All of what you told me is new, Foggy, but there’s something you left out, isn’t there?”

Foggy turns away.“Fuck you, Murdock.”

Matt stands and marches toward Foggy.“You know,” Matt insists.“You know exactly how hard it is not to listen in.You—”Matt runs a hand through his hair.

“Are you trying to tell me I had no right to judge you?” Foggy asks.“Because, if so, fine, whatever, no, I didn’t.But you’re—”

“Foggy—”

They both cut off, standing apart from each other.Matt’s watching Foggy as best as he can, and Foggy would like to look anywhere else.

“I’m going to leave now,” Foggy says.“I— If you have something you want to say, let me know.”

Matt lets Foggy leave again, and Foggy thinks the pieces of his heart are doomed to lie scattered.

* * *

Foggy sits in his apartment and drinks.  He locks his doors and windows and has the city put the keys in places drunk-him can’t get to.  The city berates him for not telling Matt his last secret, but Foggy drinks until he can’t hear it anymore.  He knows why his mother used to choose sleep over all else, now; he knows why the magically-inclined in his family never had long-term partners.  War and hate and pain hurt, but unrequited love is even worse.

* * *

Foggy doesn’t remember much, but the next morning he wakes to a killer headache.  He’s in bed—he doesn’t remember getting there— and there’s a glass of water and a bottle of painkillers on his nightstand.  Beside them, a note— _take two and drink lots of water_ —is written in neat handwriting.  He doesn’t know who wrote it, but he knows who put it there, and it’s enough to make him smile through his rampaging headache.

* * *

It takes some doing, but the city convinces Foggy to meet with Marci about Fisk.  It won’t tell Foggy what it knows, which is a pain, but it tells Foggy that Marci can help.  Foggy knows that the city still hasn’t made up its mind, so he doesn’t press, but inside, he shivers.  What if it chooses Wilson Fisk over Matt?  What if it decides the Devil isn’t what it really needs after all?

Foggy hurries to set up a meeting with Marci and hopes that he doesn’t have to find out.

* * *

It goes to hell with Ben.

It’s the third time, Foggy thinks as he watches the coffin go into the ground, that this has happened.Elena, then Matt, in a twisted way, and now Ben.This city’s taken every good thing Foggy’s found and bent it until it broke.Foggy wants to scream, wants to curl up in a bed and wish the world away, but Karen’s talking to Doris, Ben’s widow, and Matt looks like he’s ready to snap necks.Foggy has to hold it together, find the hope that will get them through.

He’s never been so desperate for hope before.He’s never been so sure he won’t find it, either.

The ball’s rolling with Marci—Matt had been pissed when he found out, but tough, Foggy thought, he wasn’t going to sit out on the sidelines and wait for the chips to fall—but it’s not enough by itself.Foggy and Matt go to see Brett, and when Matt thinks he has a lead, Foggy tells him to follow it.

The look on Matt’s face at the encouragement is enough that something else inside Foggy breaks.His heart’s already in pieces, so he can’t fathom what it is, but he doesn’t have time to think about it too much because Matt’s off, probably to get himself killed.

Foggy goes home and turns off the light and pretends he isn’t becoming his mother, hiding away from the world when it gets too much.

* * *

Fisk is behind bars, then he isn’t.  Foggy doesn’t ask the city what it knows; he tells Matt to go after Fisk and gets that same look, but then Matt’s gone again, and Foggy has Karen panicking and several missed calls from Marci, terrified to go anywhere for fear that Fisk’s out to kill her, too.  He’s juggling all of these pieces and it’s painful, the way they eat at him.  He has nothing left to give, but he keeps going anyway.  It’s what Elena and Ben did, and it’s what Matt will do, if only the city cooperates.

* * *

The next morning, looking at the newspaper article about the Daredevil, Foggy smiles but he feels hollow.  The city let Matt live.  It _let_ Matt live.  It tells him about the fight, about how it twisted the odds.

It drove Wilson Fisk mad.

Foggy clocks out early citing recent stress and goes home.He throws up in the toilet and sits in the bathroom until he falls asleep.

* * *

When he wakes, he’s on his couch, and Matt’s sitting across from him.

“Foggy,” Matt says.He sounds wrecked.It’s dark outside—Foggy’s been out for a while.

“Sorry, buddy,” Foggy says, sitting up.

“Please, Foggy,” Matt says, and Foggy pauses.

“Matt?”

Matt takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes.“I don’t know what it told you,” Matt says.Foggy recognizes that the _it_ refers to the city.“Whatever it did, I… Foggy, we’re fine.We’re safe now.”

Foggy rests his head against the armrest and stares at the ceiling.“That’s not it, Matt,” Foggy says.“I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“Father Lanthom told me you visited him.”

“Finally went back to church?And here I thought seal of confession or whatever applied, didn’t think he could talk about that.”

Matt smiles slightly.“You’re not Catholic, Foggy,” he says, “and he didn’t say it was you, just that someone worried about me had stopped in.Figured it had to be you.”

“I guess I just confessed by accident, didn’t I?” Foggy asks.“I’m really not on my game.”

“Foggy.”

“What is it, Matt?” Foggy asks.

“I care about you, too, you know,” Matt says.Foggy stops.“I know what this has done to you.I know that you and it… It’s been hard,” Matt says, seemingly at a loss for how to explain, as if Foggy needs an explanation for how he feels.

“Look,” Foggy starts, but Matt cuts him off.

“I see you,” Matt says simply.

Foggy’s eyebrows might be in his hairline.“Excuse me?” he asks.

Matt sighs.“I don’t mean in the— I sense what you’ve been through.I know what you’ve done for me, for this case, and I—”

Matt cuts himself off and swallows.Foggy wants to help him get this out, whatever this is, but he doesn’t have anything left to give.He sits and waits for Matt to continue.

“You asked me what I knew,” Matt says, “and I goaded you to tell me all the same.Yes, Foggy.I know.”

Foggy closes his eyes and smiles tightly.“Great,” he mutters.“Look, I really don’t want to talk about this right now, and—”

“I know,” Matt says.“I know, but it’s never going to be a good time because I broke the trust.At least you tried to keep from knowing about me.”

“Matt, that doesn’t excuse—”

Matt holds up a hand.

“I care about you, Foggy,” Matt says.He sounds earnest, but Foggy’s always been a sucker when it comes to Matt Murdock.“I want to keep Nelson and Murdock alive.I want to _try_.”

It takes Foggy a good few moments to process the implications behind that, but he nods slowly.

“All right, Matt,” Foggy says.“We’ll try.”

Foggy doesn’t know where this is going, doesn’t know if he wants to know, but Matt’s radiant smile is enough to convince him that he’s made the right decision.

 


End file.
